Celeste
frowned at her computer screen, drawing her finger underneath a line
of text. "And then I died." Far too cliché. No matter
how much it suited her purposes, it simply would not do. Deleting
it, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to
think.

"Then
my life was gone." That was even worse! This was far too
frustrating to be worth all the effort she was putting into it; maybe
a cup of coffee would sooth her mind.

For
the nth time, Celeste cursed her editor and his crazy
deadlines. "Have it to me by next Monday," he'd said. That
was just fine! Was it infuriatingly short notice? Absolutely it
was, but he didn't care. "No less than 500,000 words," he'd
said. That was nearly impossible. For that much writing, she
needed, at the very least, a full month's notice. She had school
and work and a social life, thank you very much.

Turning
on the tap, she contemplated getting a new editor. That wasn't
very likely…not many people were willing to give away a chance to
get some great up-and-coming author in their roster to a
twenty-something year old grad school student.

As
she poured water into the coffeemaker, a small chunk of plaster fell
on Celeste's head. Glancing up at the ceiling, she noticed that
there was now—after nearly two months of flecks and chips dropping
down onto her head and her floor—a clear hole above her. She could
see through to her neighbor's ceiling and the gargantuan black
filing cabinet sitting right on the floor's weak spot. Well, that
explained that. It was unfortunate that Mr. Cooper hated her and
would never rearrange his furniture at her request.

Celeste
tapped her fingers idly on the countertop as she waited for the
coffee to finish dripping into the pot. She could really use it
soon, or bar that, a highly effective drug of some kind. Maybe she
should go out for a smoke. Her black shirt had emerged from the wash
with a large red stain on it; maybe she could turn it into a design
of some kind, or her artsy friend Narnia could work a little magic.
She had some statistics to work out for her Stat II class, and she
should really finish that soon…anything to keep her off the
computer and away from her novel. She couldn't think straight
right then and anything she wrote would be stupid.

Sitting
at what functioned as a dining room table—really two card tables
stuck next to each other with an elegantly painted tarp thrown over
them, courtesy of Narnia's refusal to let her best friend live in
such a pigsty—Celeste slipped her mobile from the front pocket of
her vest and dialed one Takeshi Ishiyama. If he would break from his
studies for an hour or so and come over for a visit, she could weave
that into an extension-worthy excuse for her editor.

She
heard a soft trilling sound through the wires, indicative of a ring
on the other end. Drumming her fingers again, she rolled her eyes
skyward and tilted her chair back. Yeah, a cigarette would be
perfect right about now…too bad she was all out.

"Hey,
you've reached Ishiyama Takeshi. I'm not here right now, so
leave a message and I'll get back to you soon."

Beep.

Celeste
closed her mobile and thought of who else to call. Narnia was in
China somewhere on her semester overseas…Anisha was visiting her
grandmother off in India…Takeshi wasn't picking up…and Daniel…

…was
her last chance. Opening her mobile for a second time, she dialed
Daniel's number and listened to the phones connect.

One
trill.

What
would she do if he didn't pick up? She couldn't stand to go back
to her writing, and statistics were far from her mind. She wouldn't
be able to focus properly.

Two
trills.

Could
she go down to the corner to buy a pack of smokes? Oh, but she was
all out of pocket change. Every dime in her savings needed to go
towards paying the month's rent.

Three
trills.

Daniel's
phone never rang more than three times…she was out of luck, unless
he picked up during the recording. Damn. What to do now?

"Yo,
this is Daniel Manson. I'm not here or I'm not picking up, so
leave a message and I'll get back to you."

Hanging
up before the telltale "Beep," Celeste grabbed her keys from the
stand near the door and walked out into the hall, locking up behind
her. She would go for a walk. Maybe down to the bridge; water
tended to clear her head. Yeah, that sounded all right.

Ringing
for the elevator, Celeste wondered why she bothered to lock her house
at all. There was nothing in there worth stealing; her computer was
made in 2000, and beyond "out of date." The fridge had a motor
that worked when it felt like working, hence the small amount of food
stored in it. The cabinets were nearly bare except for a half-eaten
box of cereal and some bananas that were close to overripe. Her
schoolbooks would be worth nothing, or at least close to nothing at a
pawn shop—too many ripped and dog-eared corners. All the furniture
was too large to carry out easily, and besides that, it was musty and
hard to clean.

Celeste
stopped herself before her cataloguing became a rant about her social
class. "You work hard," she reminded herself. "You try your
best and who cares if the world doesn't appreciate any of it? Who
cares if your "A" papers get Cs and your "F" papers get As?
Who cares if no one bought your last book? Who cares if your
editor's a prick and who cares if your landlord hits on you every
chance he gets? Who cares that you've only got four friends in the
world and they're all too busy with real life to talk to you
at"—she checked her watch—"three in the morning? Who cares
if you've got class tomorrow and you're talking to yourself in an
elevator that hit the first floor a minute ago and you're going
down to the bridge to procrastinate and your homework's not done
and your rent is too high and your house is a pit and no one gives a
damn? Huh? Who cares then?"

The
wall was entirely unresponsive, and with a last bitter frown, Celeste
walked out the front door and slammed it behind her. Some neighbor
on the second floor yelled out his window at the noise and she
shouted a mild expletive back at him, flipping him off as she rounded
the corner.

Wind
bit at her chest and legs, smacking her jeans against her thin
calves. She folded her arms across her chest and ducked her head
down as she ran up the block and away from the cold, only to run into
another, this time wind-free chill. Her sweatshirt was little
protection.

The
river wasn't far, she knew. Only about two blocks west. She would
be fine. Ignoring the "gangster" look it gave her against her
already punk-ish clothes, Celeste pulled up her hood and yanked it
down over her forehead, letting it obscure her vision. Maybe the
"tough guy" image would keep the lowlife scum around her
neighborhood from hitting on her too much.

Raising
her eyes a little, Celeste saw the outline of the bridge lit up
clearly, the bright yellow neon clawing at her senses. Below it, a
dark shadow was thinly outlined on the banks.

"Perfect,"
she muttered bitterly. That was exactly what she didn't
need: company.

Not
that she was resentful, of course. Not at all. Maybe just a little
touched.

Determined
not to be the one to strike up conversation, Celeste merely vaulted
herself over the small ridge above the river and sat on her favorite
rock formation, a cluster of stones that remarkably resembled a swan.
Maybe the other person, whoever it was (and she did sort of hope
that she didn't know him or her or whoever), wouldn't even see
her.

A
few minutes passed in which she thought this mysterious "other
person" actually hadn't seen her. "Dense," she thought with
mock admiration.

Then
out of the darkness, he said something so low she nearly missed it.

"Who're
you?"

Celeste
looked sharply out of the corner of her eye at the strange boy. "Who
am I?" she asked scathingly. "The better question would
be 'who are you?' "

The
boy chuckled, deep in his throat and nearly silently. "When I
figure that out," he said, "I'll let you know."

The
boy smiled—at least, Celeste thought he was smiling, but in the
dark, it was hard to tell—and sighed. A pause came before he
laughed again, the sort of laugh one makes at a private joke.
Celeste quirked an eyebrow at the kid's attitude and let her
curiosity get the better of her.

"What's
so funny?"

The
boy laughed again and turned to look at Celeste. She glowered at his
secrecy and he let the chuckles temper, but still smiled. It was a
little eerie, she decided, and she definitely didn't like it. She
didn't even know him, and already this kid was weird. The
best way to get answers from him was probably hostility.

"You
gonna tell me?" she asked, trying to sound threatening. He nodded,
returning his gaze to the water, but still didn't speak. She tried
to wait, but grew impatient quickly.

"Well?"

He
looked at her again, this time sadly. "It's just that the reason
I'm sitting out here is that I know I can't wax poetic,
that's all." His smile was no longer bubbly or full of
suppressed laughter, but morose and forlorn. "I thought it was
kind of ironic."

Celeste
couldn't hold back a tiny laugh of her own. "I guess it is. You
got any friends, kid?"

The
boy frowned and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms
around them and laying his head down. He looked like he had leapt
right out of some stupid emo comic book. "What, you haven't got
any friends?"

"Not
all the time." Celeste drew one of her legs up and folded it
beneath her, letting the other hang down off the stone swan's neck.
"You think everyone's lucky enough to have friends all the
time?"

The
boy seemed to ponder this for a moment before answering, but when he
did, it was with a perplexed tone. "Well, sure. I mean, I've
got at least one friend all the time, right? Probably more."

"Ah…you're
lucky, then. You've got enough friends to have at least one of 'em
all the time." Sighing forlornly, Celeste lay back, practically
upside down on the stone swan, locking her legs around the joint of
its neck and head. "Hey, kid, how old are you?"

"Probably
older than you," the boy said snottily. Celeste let the
comment slide and closed her eyes.

"Yeah?
You living on your own yet, huh?"

The
boy snorted, a humorously undignified sound, and Celeste hid a small
laugh that she knew was inappropriate. Snorting was unavoidable for
some people, no matter how amusing. "'Course not," he said,
sounding almost insulted by her audacity. "Kids don't live on
their own, duh."

"Kid,"
Celeste said, steeling her tone as though to tell him something
important, "if you're still saying 'duh' to every little
thing, then I'm sorry to break it to you, but I am definitely
older than you are."

"Oh,
yeah?" he challenged, lifting his head to look down at her in what
he probably thought was a menacing way. "Well, how old are
you?"

Celeste
tilted her head back to look up at the smog-filled sky, blotted out
by the flashing lights and sickly pollution of the city. How old?
Takeshi liked to say that one was only as old as he felt. As old as
she felt, in this case. According to that logic, she was
about sixty. But her birthday was in 1980-something, wasn't it?
So she couldn't be older than 25. Funny the things she couldn't
remember. Maybe if she stared at the gloom hard enough, she would
see a number form in the smog and it would tell her of her age.

"Ch,"
she thought, "stupid…" The boy was getting impatient, she
could tell.

"Twenty-something,
and let's leave it at that," she said firmly. The boy looked at
her suspiciously.

"What,
do you not know?" he asked incredulously. "You've got
to know how old you are. I mean, at least you've got to know your
birthday, so you can figure it out."

She
smiled at his disbelief. Such a child, to be so concerned with
birthdays and things. The children were growing so slowly…society's
fault, she surmised. Already she was saying hokey things like "I
remember, back in the day, when pigeons were afraid of human
beings…and snow days came around more than once every few years…"

"How
old are you?" she asked, mostly to humor him. He smiled proudly
and lifted his head up as far as it would go. He might topple over
backwards if he picked it up any more.

"I'm
14," he said, deepening his voice about an octave. Celeste
couldn't help but laugh.

"Very
cute," she said, putting her hands flat on the ground and
unwrapping her legs from the swan's neck. Pushing hard on the
ground, she bent her waist down so her body formed an L-shape and
turned over, landing in a crouch with her hands in between her knees
and a rush of blood in her head. As she shook it off, the boy
unfolded himself and crawled over to her.

"I'm
not cute," he said, sounding stern and attempting to rearrange his
face to look older. "You might've finished high school already,
but I'm just getting there—started freshman year last week, as a
matter of fact, and it's a bigger step than it used to be."

Celeste
frowned. "Are you calling me old?"

The
boy cocked his head and the maturity he had adopted fled his
features, leaving him looking several years younger than he had
started. "I don't think so. Why, do you think you're old?"

Sulking
a little, the boy folded his arms over his chest and sat with his
legs crossed. He was sort of scrunched up, his knees angled towards
his body and his shoulders hunched. "Xander. But my friends call
me Odd."

Celeste
nodded slowly, the kind of nod that went with sarcastically simpering
eyes and was used to say "You're a special person, aren't you?"
Xander glared at her, waiting for some other reaction.

"As
a name, I assume," she said. "Dare I ask why?"

Shrugging,
Xander stared off into space, his eyes going in and out of focus with
alarming frequency. "Depends if you're a daring person," he
said distantly.

"Pretend
I am."

Xander
smiled and gave a soft hum of laughter. "I dunno," he said.
"Just seemed like the thing to do."

"Well,
are you an odd person?" Celeste asked. Did this nickname have any
basis in reality at all?

"I…"
Xander trailed off and his eyes lost focus again. His mouth opened
in a small "o" and he looked positively dazed. "I guess I am,"
he said after a moment.

The
pair shifted their respective positions so that they sat, side by
side, each with his or her legs stretched out—Celeste in a kind of
half split, Xander with his straight in front of him—and his or her
torso supported by similar long arms, bent in lanky L shapes to
support the rest of the body.

"Odd
how?" she asked, trying to sound casual and offhand. Xander folded
his hands on top of his chest and lay flat on his back, staring up at
the clouded sky.

"I
wonder," Xander said, "if the sky is really clear tonight. It
looks awfully cloudy, but I suppose that's just because of
industry, don't you think?"

Celeste
rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on one hand. "Deep
thinker, aren't you?" she asked passively. Xander smiled, though
it distinctly lacked humor.

"You
asked how I was odd," he said.

"Huh…guess
I did."

The
two settled into companionable silence, though they were not really
companions, each looking at something separate: Xander at the sky,
Celeste at Xander. She sighed forlornly and he looked over at her.

"Problem?"
he asked bluntly.

"Just
wondering," she replied. He waited for her to explain herself and
looked at her expectantly until she did.

"Why
you're here."

He
grunted. "Probably the same reason you're here."

She
laughed outright and rolled over onto her back, staring up at the
smog. "Because your rent is too high and your editor is unfair and
your friends can't stand by you and your schoolwork is overbearing
and your house is a mess and there isn't enough time in the day?
Is that why you're here?"

Xander
shook his head and had the good graces to look abashed. "So I
guess we're not here for the same reason."

Celeste
narrowed her eyes for a moment and put her hands behind her head.
Xander was a good enough kid—at least, he tried to be, which was
more than she could say for a lot of the people she usually hung out
with. The only thing wrong with him was probably a bombed test or a
lost contest or something. She almost didn't want to hear it…but
that would be rude, and if anything, Celeste was not rude. It had
taken some work and a lot of research into the customs of various
cultures, but Celeste was awfully polite when she wanted to be.

"Nothing,"
Xander said defensively. "I'm just taking a break, that's all.
I'll get back to it."

Celeste
smiled wanly; he sounded a little like she had when she was about
thirteen. "So what's 'it,' then?"

Making
a noise as if to begin speaking, Xander shut himself up quickly
enough and decided to hold his information for awhile. He shrugged
with an elaborate swing of his shoulders, a typical response from any
adolescent who wasn't in the mood for sharing. Celeste closed her
eyes and frowned, but didn't ask him again. She idly picked at the
grass behind her head, tossing the blades into the air and imagining
them floating down to the ground.

Xander
made an uncomfortable sound. "Please don't do that."

"Hm?
Don't do what?"

"Eh…please
don't pick the grass like that," he elaborated, pointed towards
her hands for emphasis. Celeste fingered the ground, but didn't
pull up any more greenery. It was an odd request, but it had to have
reason, didn't it?

Speaking
of which…

"Why?"

Jerking
his head back as though startled that he had been addressed, Xander
promptly looked back to the river and half-lidded his eyes. He
looked awfully depressed over something, Celeste thought. Pity he
didn't want to explain.

"It's
bad for the grass," he said softly, and she had to strain to hear
him. "A lot of people think it's so plentiful, a little pulled
up won't matter, but it's all important." Xander laughed
hollowly and closed his eyes the rest of the way. "You need every
wave to make an ocean."

"Every
wave?" Celeste asked, rolling over again. It had been awhile since
she had been so restless. And hadn't they just been talking about
grass?

"Every
wave, every tide, every drop of water," Xander said mournfully.
"They're all part of the ocean, they're all part of the sea.
They're all part of the big thing that gives us all life, right?
Every one is important."

Celeste
laughed a little under her breath. Xander might not be the most
successful poet, from what she had heard of his complaints, but he
certainly had a poet's soul.

"Sure
thing," she said, suppressing her merriment. "So…really,
what's the problem? I mean, what's got you all the way down here
in this cold?"

He
sounded awfully sad… Celeste crawled over to Xander and knelt
beside him, her expression concerned and apologetic. "What's
wrong?" she asked softly. "What do you mean, 'too
supportive'?"

Xander
sniffled and rubbed his nose, closing his eyes tightly. "They're
so happy with everything!" he cried, his voice muffled by his
shirtsleeve. "They never tell me I've done something wrong, or
stupid, because I'm so creative and it's so great!
Everything I do is perfect, everything I do should go on all my
applications to everywhere because it's so—so original, so great!
Even if I hate it, they pressure me to do it anyway 'cause I'm
so different and so great!"

Hesitantly,
Celeste put her arm around Xander's shoulders. "That sounds pretty
annoying," she said, keeping her tone hushed. "I mean, I had
supportive parents and all, but it was always 'Get the money on
your own,' or 'Try something different if it doesn't work right
the first time.' I really had to work hard to get a compliment,
but I don't think I'd like to be where you are, either. I
mean…I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, but…d'you know
what I mean?"

Xander
sniffed again and nodded his head, his hair drooping over his
forehead and shadowing his face. Celeste tried to tug him a little
closer to her and he fell against her chest, lying with his knees
still pulled to his chest and his arms clasped around one another.

"Ah…"

The
pair sat like that for some minutes, until Xander's crying trickled
off into practically nothing. Celeste helped him sit up and ruffled
his hair—he rewarded her with a dark glower and an awkward laugh,
to which she smiled brightly and ruffled his hair some more. As he
blinked rapidly, clearing away the last of his waterworks, she
noticed his eyes—still sad, they reminded her of faded limes or
pale grass. Awkwardly struggling for a way to breach conversation,
Celeste wondered what time it was.

"You
know," she said, glancing down at her wrist, "it's about five
AM. Are your parents worried about you?"

Xander
shrugged. "Maybe, if they're awake. I left at like, two
thirty."

"Well,
you should get going home anyway—do you live far off?"

Gesturing
vaguely, Xander shook his head. "Nah. Seven or eight blocks that
way, I dunno. I can find my house easy."

Celeste
stood and looked down at him skeptically. "Sure?"

"Yes,
mother," he drawled, standing as well. "What, do you want to
walk me home?"

"I
wouldn't be averse to it," Celeste admitted, folding her arms
over her chest for warmth. "Want some company?"

Xander
paused a moment, then smiled—small, but genuine—and nodded.
Walking off, he seemed to expect Celeste to follow; the fact that she
did was beyond the point. The walked slowly, hearing each step as it
slapped the concrete and not really caring. They fell into step with
one another easily and Celeste was glad that they made less noise
that way.

"So,"
Xander said after a few steps, "you were out there 'cause of your
rent and all that? Too overwhelming?"

Celeste
grinned and shrugged. "Guess so. I was looking for a friend to
talk to, but mine were all busy, so I just went for a walk by myself
and ended up at the bridge." Not entirely true, but details were
similar. It didn't matter too much.

Xander
smiled sheepishly. "I'm not your friend?" he asked. "It's
okay, I don't mind. I mean, we just met, and you're a lot older
than I am. It's cool."

"Nah,
you dork," she said, cuffing his shoulder. "You're my friend
as of now. You weren't at three AM when I was calling around,
though, were you? That'd be stalker creepy."

Xander
laughed and cuffed Celeste right back, beginning a playful exchange
of light punches. The two ended up ducking behind mailboxes and
things in efforts to spring surprise attacks on the "enemy," each
getting in about three more hits before Xander tripped and they
called it quits.

"This
is my house, anyway," he said, gesturing to the rather nice
apartment they had paused in front of. Celeste whistled
appreciatively and nodded a few times, offering her hand to help him
up.

"Very
nice," she said, throwing her arm around his shoulders and giving
them a quick squeeze. "M'kay, buddy, maybe I'll see you around
sometime."

"Yeah,"
Xander said. "Want my mobile number?"

"Eh?"
Celeste took out her own mobile and nodded. "Sure thing—one
sec…" Punching up the "New Entry" window in her address
book, Celeste typed "Xander" and handed it to him, letting him
write his own number. She didn't like to speak her own number out
loud; why assume he wouldn't care? When Xander handed her mobile
back, the number was logged, so it didn't really matter at all.
Celeste still held out her hand for his mobile, which he fished from
his pocket and handed to her.

"Call
me sometime," Celeste said as she finished her number and handed it
back. "You can brag to all your friends that you've got a grad
student in your phone book."

"Oh,
I will," Xander said with a nod. "Thanks a lot!"

As
Celeste began to walk away, Xander remembered something that could be
construed as important.

Xander
flicked through the entries and saw her name; he grinned and waved.
"Sure is! See you!"

"'Bye!"

Wandering
down the street to her own home, Celeste smiled giddily and chuckled
at her own cheesy happiness. So she had a new friend now—weird,
but altogether good. He didn't seem to mind that she was
"punk/emo/Goth," so he wouldn't complain about it the way
Takeshi did. He had his own melodramatic, angst-y problems, so he
would tell her to shut up about hers the way Anisha did. He was too
young to imagine that she was exaggerating the workload of a grad
student, so he wouldn't tell her to stop complaining the way Daniel
did. He didn't know about her familial awkwardness, so he wouldn't
suggest that she see a psychotherapist or a counselor or whoever it
was that Narnia suggested she visit.

Life
was all right. For the moment, anyway. Celeste checked her
watch—4:36. Not bad, not bad.

"Hey,
kiddo."

Instantly,
Celeste was on high alert. No one called her "kiddo" and got
away with it. Perking her ears a little, she heard a soft footfall
behind her. But the voice had come from in front of her—damn…there
were two of them.

She
could always fake insanity…that might work. She had only tried it
once before, but the guy had left her alone. She was a pretty good
actor, anyway.

"Are…are
you talking to me?" she asked, putting on a stunned and excited
tone. The guy in front of her stepped closer, and she could see his
heavy muscles and thick leather jacket. Altogether a poser, but
still dangerous.

"I
don't see anyone else 'round here, do you?" he asked, clearly
trying his best to sound seductive. So this bugger wasn't trying
to steal from her; he was trying to hit on her, and probably more.
Great. Celeste suppressed a violent shudder.

"I
mean…you can see me? And everything?" she asked ecstatically.
The guy looked a little perplexed, but advanced on her further. She
heard another few steps taken behind her—that guy would probably
try to pin her to the ground or something. She stepped forward to
preempt his tackle. "Really?"

The
guy looked thoroughly confused now, and she smiled widely. She was
smiling at her apparent success, but he didn't need to know that.
He flashed some kind of subtle signal at the guy behind her and the
footsteps stopped.

"Why
wouldn't I be able to see such a luscious babe as you, honey?"
the guy said. Celeste nearly blew her cover and burst out laughing
at the horrible pickup line, but twisted her humor into another
brilliant smile. The guy behind her was stepping again…to the side
this time? Curious. Out of the corner of her eye, Celeste saw the
guy come up beside her, flashing a toothy grin and groping at the air
around her.

"To
be alive is a wonderful thing!" she cried exuberantly, clapping the
guy in front of her on the shoulder and walking right past him.
Risky, yeah, but she needed to get away fast. Something about that
guy beside her was strange and kind of unnerving.

"Hey
babe!" the guy called to her back. "I'll see ya later! Count
on it!" Pretending not to hear him, Celeste twirled in a dizzy
circle and stumbled a few feet forward before breaking into a sprint.

"I'm
alive!" she shouted, completely giddy. A little ill at her
disgustingly excitable behavior, she ran as fast as she could all the
way back to her apartment. Opening the door, she darted into the
foyer and slammed it closed behind her, sinking down against the
wall. Had that been a little too close? Maybe. She needed to be
more careful in these late hours.

Her
mobile vibrated with a faint whirring sound. Unhooking it from her
waistband, she looked at the call screen and saw a familiar name
flashing across it: Ishiyama. Takeshi was calling her. At 4:41 AM,
Takeshi was calling her and expecting her to answer. She frowned.
Not likely.

After
a moment, the vibration ceased and Celeste headed for the stairs.
First floor, second floor…if Takeshi was calling her at such an
ungodly hour, he must have been awake at 3:00 when she had
called him. Third floor…there was no reason for her to
answer when he had so blatantly ignored her. Fourth floor…had
these stairs gotten shorter? She could have sworn she was only on
the third floor by now, but no, there it was in faded and peeling
gold letters: "5th Floor." Huh. Funny thing.

Sliding
into the narrow hallway of the fifth floor, Celeste fished her keys
out of her pocket and unlocked the front door of apartment 5C. But
instead of falling open, the tumbler stuck in the lock and resisted
movement. Weird…but whatever. Celeste pulled her keys from the
lock and tried the door, which opened right away. Had she forgotten
to lock up? No, she distinctly remembered locking the door before
she had left. Then she had wondered why she bothered, which had
started that whole rant against her life. Right, so what was going
on? Too strange…there was nothing worth stealing in her shoddy
living quarters…

On
a whim, Celeste walked to the "kitchen" and looked up through the
hole in her ceiling—only to find that there was no hole in
her ceiling. But that couldn't be right. She distinctly
remembered the plaster falling on her head before she left, as she
had waited for her coffee to finish dripping, and come to think of
it, she hadn't gotten around to drinking the coffee, so it should
be cooling in the coffee pot which was suddenly not there.

What
was going on?

Pulling
out her mobile again, Celeste dialed Daniel's number and rapped her
knuckles on the table as she waited for an answer. One
ring…two…three…

"Hello?"

"Daniel,
hey, it's Celeste."

"…Celeste?
Oh my God, Celeste Lancer?"

Celeste
raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. She had seen Daniel only
yesterday, in Developmental Psychology 203.

"Uh,
yeah. Why? Something wrong?"

Daniel
made some kind of odd gasping noise and seemed to stutter something
like "No!" He cleared his throat and muttered again, "Oh my
God…"

"Daniel,
what's your problem? Someone die or something?"

"I
thought you did!"

"…excuse
me?"

Daniel
took a deep breath, presumably to steady his voice, and began again.
"Celeste, are you telling me you don't remember, you know, almost
dying?"

Celeste
sat hard on her crappy old sofa, putting a hand to her head. Either
this was some kind of warped practical joke, or something strange was
going on and she was completely out of the loop. She opened her
mouth a few times before finding her voice and speaking again.

"Almost
dying?"

"Oh
my God, you don't remember…"

"No,
no, Daniel, come over to my house right now. I seriously need to
talk to you."

"Yeah.
Yeah, of course, I'll be right there."

"M'kay,
'bye."

"'Bye."

Turning
off her mobile, Celeste lay on her side on the sofa and stared at the
wall. What was going on? Why did Daniel sound so shocked to head
from her? Why had he said he thought she had died? Where was
the hole in her ceiling, and why wasn't there coffee in the pot?

As
she closed her eyes tightly, she could feel a headache beginning
around her temples. Exactly what she didn't need right
then. Brilliant. As her head began to pulse, she rubbed her
forehead in a circular motion and rolled over onto her stomach,
burrowing into the pillows that smelled like mothballs and old tar.

All
too soon, though she knew she had waited for it, the doorbell rang—a
low, tinny sound reverberated through the cramped apartment and
Celeste rolled off of the sofa, falling on the floor and getting up
with a little awkwardness. She padded over to the front door and
opened it, raking her hand through her hair in a vain effort to look
at ease with the situation.

But
Daniel didn't come in, nor did he respond to her question. Staring
at her for two or three seconds, Daniel took a step back, then a step
forward as he threw his arms around her neck in an effusive hug.
Thrown off by this out-of-character act, Celeste merely stood
unresponsive, letting herself be hugged until Daniel was satisfied.
Eventually he was, and he slid off of her, walking right past her
into the den area without even a passing glance.

Celeste
followed with no argument, slightly bewildered at the recent turn of
events.

"Daniel?"
she asked softly. "Can you tell me what's going on? I mean, I
almost died, and I don't even know it?"

Daniel
nodded, sinking onto the sofa and looking blankly at the wall. The
paint was shiny and white—odd…Celeste could have sworn it was
chipped, not to mention dirty. Shrugging off that abnormality, she
sat beside her friend and looked at him with concern in her eyes. He
still didn't return the favor, looking pointedly anywhere but
at her.

They
waited silently for nearly half an hour before Daniel finally spoke.

"Celeste,
you were in a coma for about a year. We all thought you were
dead—dying, at least, and probably going to die before you
woke up. It was really scary. I mean, none of us had ever had a
friend die before, and we had no idea what to do, or think, or
prepare for, or do, or anything…"

Celeste
smiled wryly. "You said 'do' twice."

"I
mean, God, we were so confused…" Daniel went on, ignoring
Celeste's comment or not hearing it at all, "and no one knew what
happened to you, I mean, until right now. Suddenly one day, Narnia
and I went to the hospital and you weren't there anymore. No one
seemed to know anything about anything, and we assumed—I mean, we
naturally—you know, we thought…well, we thought the worst, right
off. We thought you were dead. I don't think she had any idea you
were back here, and I know I definitely didn't."

Celeste
leaned into the cushions and nodded blankly, having stopped absorbing
or hearing anything Daniel said beyond "you weren't there
anymore." Her eyes dim and unfocused, she turned towards Daniel
without really seeing him.

"How
old am I?"

Starting
slightly, Daniel looked over at her with a curious expression and
tilted his head slightly away, towards the wall. Celeste blinked her
gaze back into focus and had the good graces to blush slightly,
though it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"Sorry,"
she said, "but I don't remember."

"Uh…huh…"

Seeming
to do some calculation in his head, Daniel turned in his seat to face
her fully and squinted his eyes. "I guess," he said slowly,
"you'd be about 28 by now. Why, how old did you think you were?"

Celeste
shrugged. "I dunno, 25 or something…"

Silence
reigned again, but this time it was not broken by Celeste's
questions, nor Daniel's pointless explanations. No, this time, the
pair of them laughed softly.

Daniels's
small chuckle bubbled up in his throat and became a quiet but hearty
laugh. Celeste's delicate giggle became a smooth, wonderfully
entertained sound. The pair joined in their amusement at a woefully
depressed situation and turned to one another as the emotion died off
in a pair of sighs.

Celeste
giggled a bit and shook her head again. "No, he's got parents,
he told me so. He lives in a nice enough house about eight blocks
from here. I think he has a brother or something, too."

Now
Daniel simply looked confused. "But don't you remember the night
right before your coma? You met up with him on the street, don't
you remember?"

"I…I—what?"

"Yeah,
sure," Daniel pressed. "You saw him coming out of the orphanage
uptown and asked him if he'd been doing volunteer work or
something, and he told you that he was working part time for pocket
change. You went in, don't you remember, and asked what his job
was? The clerk kind of laughed at you, I think you said, and told
you he was an orphan who lived there. You guys haven't spoken
since, obviously—I bet he thinks you hate him."

Celeste
turned again, sitting cross-legged and facing Daniel full on. "No,
no!" she insisted. "No, I just met him down by the bridge. We
talked about why we were down there and I gave him my mobile number,
and he put his in my address book. Then I left and ran into those
two muggers or whatever, so I did like Anisha suggested and pretended
I was insane."

Shaking
his head profusely, Daniel leaned forward and wrapped Celeste in
another fierce hug. She returned this one reluctantly, patting him
weakly on the back in a falsely comforting manner.

"I…I
still have his number in my mobile," she said finally. "I'm
going to call him."

Pulling
back, Daniel looked at her with wet eyes and nodded. "All right,"
he said, "but keep in mind, he's about 17 now."

"Right…"

Unable
to imagine how that would make much of a difference, Celeste took out
her mobile and opened the address book, finding Xander's number with
ease. It was listed as "Odd," but she clearly remembered his
nickname and felt the slightest bit honored that he would enter it
into her book. Trying to suppress feelings that she didn't deserve
to call him that anymore, she pressed "Send."

The
mobile vibrated slightly as it rang, and she put it to her ear.
Ring…ring…

"Ding…dong…ding…dong…"

"Hello?"

Celeste
paused for a moment. She hadn't actually expected Xander to answer
his phone! Didn't he have anything better to do? It was 5:00 AM,
after all…normal people were still asleep. This day just got
weirder and weirder.

"Hello?"
Xander asked again, sounding annoyed.

"Um,
Xander, hi. It's Celeste. Remember me? We met underneath that
bridge, by the river, just the—I, I mean…awhile ago. A few
years?" She looked questioningly at Daniel for confirmation,
though Xander assumed she was asking if he remembered.

There
was a pause on the other end of the phone as Xander presumably
collected his thoughts. Celeste felt several small butterflies in
her stomach, though she wasn't entirely sure why. She liked Xander
well enough, but they had known each other for a painfully short time
and she had no real interest vested in his liking her or not.

Celeste
frowned. This conversation was not at all how she had imagined it
would be—Xander was not the sweet, slightly awkward boy she
remembered. Maybe there was something to be said for the difference
in age, but still, he had changed an awful lot. Had something
happened at the orphanage? Speaking of which, she thought bitterly,
why had he lied to her about living with overprotective parents in a
decent house eight blocks from the bridge?

"Wanna
get together or something?" he asked, sounding completely
offhanded. Celeste closed her eyes and put a finger to her temple.

"Why
don't I swing by the orphanage?" she asked bluntly. Xander
stuttered and she imagined him shaking his head profusely.

"No
that's okay I'll come to you," he said in a rush. Celeste's
frown became a small smirk, but she didn't open her eyes.

"You
know where I live?" she asked.

"Uh,
no. I don't stalk you or anything."

Celeste
chuckled. "Right. 71st, between Black and Fox Wood."

"That's
right near my place," Xander said approvingly. "See you in a
few."

"Do
I? I've never met the guy," Daniel said. "I dunno, was he
nice when you met him?"

Celeste
shrugged and her smile shrank considerably. "Nice enough, I guess.
As I say, awkward, kind of attention starved. Looked pretty thin,
now that I think of it." Pondering this thought, Celeste put a
finger to her chin. "Actually, he almost looked malnourished."

"That's
not cool."

"Right,
I know…"

They
each fell victim to their own thoughts for awhile as Daniel watched
Celeste and she stared off into space, waiting for the bell to ring.

"Bin-bon,"
she said idly, her gaze still unfocused. Daniel raised his eyebrows
and edged closer, waving his hand before her face.

Daniel
made a noncommittal grunt and his mouth slanted in a sort of half
frown. He shrugged it off and leaned into the smelly couch cushions,
seeming to take no notice of anything Celeste found odd. But it was
all wrong—the coffee, the ceiling, the paint, the smell of the
sofa, all of it. And Xander, 17 years old…herself, 28 years
old? When had that happened?

Finally,
the bell rang, and Celeste leapt from the cushions to tend to it.

"Hey,"
she said before she had even gotten it halfway open, "come—"

Xander.
No longer the cute, shy, poetic boy she had met, but taller, firmer,
tougher, more assured of himself. His eyes were no longer the color
of faded limes, but a piercing, hardened emerald. He intimidated
her, that was for sure, but it seemed entirely unintentional.

"—on
in," she finished weakly, stepping back to make room. "I know
it's a real dump, but it's all I can afford. Probably not as
nice as what you're used to, given that swank apartment building
you live in down the street."

Xander
looked at her oddly, almost offended. "Excuse me?" he said.
Daniel had pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes and was
shaking his head, blushing his embarrassment underneath the hair that
had fallen over his face.

"Um…"
Celeste faltered, clearly remembering the house he had taken her to
only a few years before…yet hadn't Daniel mentioned something
about the orphanage? Xander worked there, didn't he? Except,
no…that wasn't right. Daniel had said she thought he
worked there, but at the receptionist's desk, she had learned that
things were quite different: he lived there. That was it…he
had lied to her about his apartment and now he thought she knew where
he lived.

Oh.
Right.

Celeste
had the good sense to blush darkly, the blood rushing to her head and
making her the littlest bit dizzy.

"I'm
really, really sorry," she said quietly in something of a mumble.
Xander scrutinized her closely and shook his head.

"That's
nice," he said, "but I would've thought someone your age would
have the sense not to make fun of me like that. It's very rude of
you."

Celeste
felt her shoulders beginning to quiver as she suppressed an awkward
combination of self-deprecating laughter and miserably sad tears.
She had no idea what was going on! No idea! Absolutely none…

In
some tiny, insignificant way, it was freeing to her mind. She was
not expected to know anything, nor remember anyone, nor hold any
responsibility. Nothing about her life was real or reasonable. She
was completely free from the real world.

In
a much, much larger way, it was horribly restrictive. She knew
nothing of this odd world, three years in the future. Who she knew,
what she knew, all was different and strange. She had to rely on
others to guide her, even when they did not know she needed
guidance—which, of course, made things all the worse. "Help me,"
she wanted to scream at them, "can't you see I don't know where
I am?" Yet at the same time, she wanted to shove them all away,
yelling for her own freedom, that she could do what she wanted and
that was that. She was 28, for crying out loud!

Sinking
to the ground, Celeste put her arms over her head and repressed her
tears with a vigor. She could imagine Xander and Daniel looking down
at her with curiosity and sorrow; Daniel was probably deciding
whether he should comfort her, and Xander was probably thinking, or
at least trying to think that she had gotten hers. She wished
neither of them was at her house right then.

"I'm
sorry," she said, her voice gargling unpleasantly with the
backed-up clog of unshed tears. "Daniel, I'm sorry. Xander,
I…Xander, talk to Daniel. Would you talk to Daniel?"

"Sure
thing," Daniel said instantly, keeping his voice soft. He settled
for patting Celeste on the shoulder and moving to guide Xander into
the den, though the younger boy would not be so easily sated.

"I
want to hear things from you," he said harshly. Celeste shook her
head, keeping her gaze towards the floor.

"I—can't,"
she said with a small hiccough, closing her eyes tightly. "I'm
really sorry, but—but Daniel will tell you everything he
knows—right Daniel?"

"Yeah,
yeah," Daniel said sincerely. "C'mon, Xander, let's sit over
there and I'll tell you everything I told Celeste just then."

With
a disgruntled noise, Xander followed his elder to the smelly sofa and
listened with divided attention, still keeping an eye on Celeste as
she cried in the little space before the front door. She hadn't
moved other than the occasional quiver, which was often accompanied
by a soft or tormented sob.

She
listened to them talk—Xander got the occasional word in edgewise,
asking repeatedly why she had to be such a snot. Daniel and his
unending patience trod on steadily, but Xander was getting angry, she
could tell. She wanted to explain, tell them everything, tell him
everything, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. She wasn't
prepared to take on a lie that big.

"I
don't know…I don't know, I don't know anything… Take me
away…"

With
another wrenched sob, Celeste fumbled behind her back for the
doorknob and turned it, only to find the tumbler locked into
place—Xander or Daniel had locked it after the younger boy's
arrival. She might have suspected such a thing… Swearing
internally, she tried to pull herself to her feet and managed to make
it to the long block of wood protruding from the wall which
substituted for a kitchen counter before collapsing against it. Her
hand felt as though it might have been bruised, but the pain was
somehow detached from her, as though she knew of its existence but
only observed it lingering in space. A sensation with no body to
inflict. Morbidly ironic.

"Celeste?"

Daniel's
voice from somewhere far away. Where was she? It was somewhere
strange, somewhere disconcerting where little made sense…oh, right,
the Gobi. How could she have forgotten? Heat made the air thick—it
must be distorting the sound waves, slowing them down.

"Daniel?"
she called, though her voice was muffled.

She
heard Xander's voice—"Why's she so loud?" he was asking.
She wanted to explain, wanted to reason with him, wanted to know why
it wasn't obvious, but her voice was constricted in her throat and
she couldn't make a sound. She wasn't choking, exactly, but
something close. Not dangerous, no, just…almost.

"Celeste,"
Daniel said again, more firmly this time, and she felt his hand
around her arms, holding her up. He had come over awfully fast…and
considering the heat, he must have run faster than she had ever seen
him go…

"Are
you okay?" he asked. She looked blearily over his shoulder and saw
Xander, who even looked a little concerned. Turning her gaze back to
Daniel, she smiled weakly and nodded.

Awfully
hot, she could feel the pressure building around her, crushing her,
pushing her down, but she was so cold…so cold…

Xander
frowned, his eyebrows knitting together as he stepped closer and put
his hand on her shoulder. "It's nearly 45 degrees outside," he
said nervously. She shook her head, clearly perplexed.

"Can't
be," she said, trying to sound firm. "It's never that cold in
the desert."

Daniel
and Xander exchanged a look, both now afraid for her and Xander a
little afraid of her. Daniel picked her up and carried her
over to the sofa, laying her down and smoothing the hair back from
her forehead. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all—a sofa
in the Gobi, and one that smelled exactly the same as hers did at
home. The home with walls that weren't cracked right, plaster that
wasn't broken right, and coffee that wasn't made right. On the
right street and in the right apartment, but at the same time, all
wrong. Every single bit was wrong.

"Wrong,"
she said in an eerily maddened voice. "Wrong, wrong!"

"What's
wrong?" Xander asked, sitting by her legs. Daniel stopped petting
her hair and went to get something from the kitchen sink. She could
hear the water running.

"No,
you're doing it wrong," she said matter-of-factly. "There's
no water in the desert, see, unless you crack open a cactus. You
can't get it from the river, it's all dried up."

"I
think she's hallucinating," Xander said, leaning over the back of
the sofa to speak to Daniel. The older boy scoffed and the water
stopped.

"You're
preaching to the choir," Daniel said distractedly, holding out the
now damp cloth. "Wet this for me, would you? Cold water."

Muttering
incoherently, Xander brought the cloth to the sink and took his time
wetting it. He could be heard wringing it out and rewetting it
several times before he was satisfied and brought it back to Daniel's
dark frown.

"She's
sick," he said firmly. "Don't make her wait just 'cause
of your—I don't know, your personal vendetta or whatever your
problem is."

Trying
to sop Celeste's forehead and speak articulately at the same time,
Daniel glanced out of the corner of his eye at Xander and made sure
to look displeased. "You know," he said impatiently, "it's
not her fault she insulted you."

"Oh?"
Xander snapped. "How do you figure? Sure sounded like her to my
ears, don't you think?"

"I
don't know what it sounded like to your ears," Daniel retorted.
"I can't hear out of them. All I know is that Celeste has got
something weird going on in her life and she needs her friends to
help her figure out what it is. If you don't want to be a part of
that, then you can leave now and I won't care. I'm sure she
won't."

With
another grunt, Xander slammed the door. Unbeknownst to Daniel, he
did not proceed to leave, but sat on the mat outside of Celeste's
door and leaned up against it, determined not to leave until he heard
one of the apartment's occupants doing so. He wanted to make
amends with Celeste, really he did, but it was for the wrong reasons,
and he didn't know her well, anyway.

Resting
his head in his hands, Xander idly thought up some new lyrics and
tunes for his guitar and traced patterns on the cold tile floor.

On
the sofa, Celeste continued to hallucinate that she was wandering in
the Gobi. Daniel had resorted to sitting beside a plastic trash can
full of water, periodically wetting the cloth and sometimes simply
sloshing water onto her head with his cupped hands. She was
beginning to make him nervous. She was not asleep, or unconscious
even; her eyes were wide open and she blinked sparingly, which was
worse. She couldn't have a concussion; she hadn't banged her
head. Sleep would be a good thing for her. Sleep was a good thing
for fevers.

Besides,
her wide grey eyes were creeping him out.

"Celeste,"
he said in his best paternal voice, "do you think you could try to
get some sleep now, honey?"

"Honey,"
he thought angrily. Why had he said "honey"? Sounding like a
father, it had been natural. But he had a girlfriend, for crying out
loud! A fiancé, even! Talasi would kill him if she
thought he was hitting on another girl. Luckily, Celeste was
completely out of it, and if her amnesia—for he had decided, that
was what it was—was as bad as it seemed, she probably didn't even
know who Talasi was. They had only met twice. Talasi wouldn't
have to know, and he would never tell her, that was for sure.

Frowning
at the name calling—stupid, he wasn't stupid—Daniel dripped
more water onto Celeste's face and patted her arm in what he
thought was a soothing manner. Should he call Narnia or Anisha?
Takeshi was in Korea or something, or maybe Thailand, so that was no
good. Anisha would be working, knowing her—she was having trouble
making ends meet and had taken on another job. Despite her parents'
wealth, she had little money, as it all went to her older sister.
Little did their parents know it was mostly being spent on angel dust
and crack. "Huh," he thought with a grin. "We're all just a
screwy band of losers, aren't we?"

"Where'd
you get that, anyway?" she asked drunkenly, gestured vaguely to the
cloth now resting atop her head. "It's not like we're in—in
a city or somethin', 'cause if we were, you'd have to call the
National Guard. Tell them we found the lost ruins of Quetzalcoatl."

Daniel
couldn't help but chuckle, though it was weak and sounded forced.
"Quetzalcoatl was a god, not a city," he said fondly. "Get
some sleep, Celeste."

She
yawned exaggeratedly, stretching her arms above her head and
squeezing her eyes shut. Clearly she was exhausted, though Daniel
could only assume and guess why—was it the mental stress of the
last few hours? Had she done something she no longer remembered
which had drained her physically? Was he brain shutting down to
process all this information? To heal? To block them all out? Or
was it something else entirely? Did he even have any business
knowing?

Whatever
the reason, she seemed to have finally dropped off, which meant he
needed to make her comfortable and leave as soon as possible to get
help. Professional help…not so much. Funds were tight for them
both, as well as for Anisha, but Narnia might be able to give them a
hand. She always seemed to have spare cash somehow, which was odd,
now that he thought of it—her parents weren't especially loaded,
from what he knew.

"Don't
look a gift horse in the mouth," he reminded himself; though he
thought the phrase was stupid, it did get the point across.

Standing,
he began to search the house for a thick blanket as he turned on his
mobile and dialed Narnia. She picked up on the first ring.

"'Lo?"

Daniel
looked at his watch: 6:02. Narnia usually woke early, anyway, so it
wasn't too much of a surprise, though she did sound groggy, as
though she had only just gotten out of bed.

"Hey
Narnia," he said jovially. "Guess who called me this morning?"

"Umm…"
Narnia fumbled for an answer for a moment and decided she would never
guess correctly. "The Power Rangers want you to join them in their
latest escapade."

Trying
not to take offence at her faith in his ability to recognize his
friends, Daniel shrugged, even though he knew Narnia couldn't see
it. "Yeah, that's basically what I said when she called me. I'm
positive, I've just spent a little more than the last hour or so at
her house."

"And
you didn't call me why?" she asked, sounding more than a
bit offended. Daniel nearly smacked himself in the head—of course
Narnia would have wanted to be called right away…he shouldn't
have mentioned how low he had been there. There was nothing to do
about it now, but he could remember that bit of information for the
next time a situation like this one arose.

…yeah.
Right. Like that would ever happen.

"I
didn't think," he said truthfully. "Besides, it was really
early in the morning, like 4:45, so I figured you'd be asleep."

"Well
I would have been, but I would've woken myself up for her!
She's been dead for the last three years, Daniel, this
strikes me as breaking news!"

"I
know, I know, I'm an idiot and I'm sorry," he said. If she had
been present, he likely would have been proffering himself on the
floor, begging for forgiveness. "Get over here now, would you,
though? She's got a fever in a bad way."

"I'll
be there right away," Narnia promised. Daniel nearly missed the
last words as she was already hanging up her own mobile. Turning his
off, he paced around the kitchen and fetched himself a glass of
water, splashing some on his face before he turned the tap off.

He
stared at the back of the sofa and leaned against the counter. He
felt sort of bad for Celeste, not because her fever was his fault in
any way—at least, he didn't see how it could be—but because she
was in such a bad way already, and then to go and get sick all of a
sudden for no apparent reason was just too much.

"This
is why I'm atheist," he said loudly to the ceiling, which sort of
posed an argument for his declaration, but made him feel better
anyway. Suddenly he hoped his voice hadn't woken Celeste—he
needed to learn to control himself better… He was nearly 28, he
should have learned already. Pondering why he hadn't, or rather,
what had prevented him from it, he nearly missed a soft rapping on
the door. Narnia never liked doorbells, for some odd reason.
Something about fingerprints, if he remembered correctly.

Walking
over softly—one thing he had learned was that tiptoeing was
not necessarily the best way to walk silently, but walking flatfoot
could do just as well if one was careful about how he stepped—Daniel
opened the door and prepared to invite Narnia inside. Unexpectedly,
he found not only Narnia on the other side of the door, but Xander,
who was making a valiant effort to escape into the elevator.
Unfortunately for him, it had gone back down to one just as Narnia
had gotten off, so he was left standing awkwardly in the hall under
Daniel's critical eye.

"Sorry,"
he muttered. "As soon as the elevator gets back, I'll be going."

"Who's
he?" Narnia asked Daniel in a hushed tone. He shook his head
wearily and invited her inside, remaining in the doorway to talk to
Xander.

"Come
on in, then," he said impatiently, gesturing to the apartment.
Xander shook his head, obviously embarrassed, and pressed the button
to ring the elevator again.

"Oh—"
Daniel stepped into the hall and grabbed Xander's arm, pulling him
back inside. The boy came with some small resistance, the kind that
said "I do really want to come in but I'm being a stubborn prick
so I'll resist when you ask me to."

Leaving
no room for argument or small discussion, Daniel shoved Xander inside
and closed the door firmly, locking it with a small "click."
Narnia stood with her arms crossed and her hip thrown out, obviously
impatient and, Xander thought from the combination of posture and
attire, probably from money. Her hair, dyed deep, rich red was
shining under the faint lights, adorned with a thin barrette to keep
it out of her hair, but Xander's detail-oriented vision picked up on
the intricate design drawn with a painfully thin brush in paint that
exactly matched her hair color. She must have paid a bit for it; on
top of the painstaking detail of the design, the barrette itself
seemed to be made of crystal or heavy glass.

"I
like you barrette," he said idly. Narnia looked at him curiously
and nodded once.

"Wait
a second," Xander interrupted. "Your name is Narnia? Like the
books?"

Narnia
raised her eyebrows and looked at Xander as though he had just
insulted her. "Sort of," she said slowly. "It's not my
given name, if that's what you mean. It's an artist's
pseudonym, like a writer's penname. My brother, he calls himself
Grey. I would too if my parents named me Harry."

Rolling
her eyes, Narnia crept over to the sofa as though she was about to
discover a secret treasure. Leaning over the back, she peered at the
cushions and the girl lying atop them. Sure enough, it was her old
friend Celeste Lancer, and sure enough, she was fast asleep.

Turning,
Narnia glared once more and Daniel for good measure and then padded
into the kitchen area, hoisting herself up to sit on the counter.
She leaned herself forward slightly, apparently in anticipation, and
waited for a further explanation of this odd boy's presence at her
long lost friend's house.

Daniel
seemed used to such subtle nuances and requests as that, for he
closed his eyes and tipped his head back, giving himself a moment to
sooth his thoughts before speaking. Xander watched the two with some
interest as he leaned against the refrigerator.

"Remember
that sweet little boy Celeste was telling us about?" Daniel asked,
the timeframe he was referring to obvious, even to Xander.
"Misguided, she said. Kind of poetic? She met him under the
bridge that one night, remember?"

"Hi,"
she said, trying to be friendly and succeeding well enough. "I'm
Narnia."

Xander
repressed the urge to say something snappish like "I know," but
inclined his head in a small bow and gave a small smile. If she
noticed how utterly forced it was, she chose not to comment.

"So…"
she began, "what do we do about Celeste? Come to think of it,
Daniel—" she turned to him accusatorily "—why did you call me
and not Anisha?"

Daniel
blinked owlishly, then let his eyes flicker to the side and back
before turning his head down, looking at the floor. He angled his
body just slightly away from her and fidgeted a bit.

Narnia
understood at once. "Money," she said dully. Daniel looked at
her and smiled sheepishly.

"Well
you know Anisha's in a tight spot, and I'm pretty sure Takeshi's
saving to pay off some debt or other, and you always seem to have
loads of pocket change, so…I…you know. I figured I'd best call
you."

"But
what is the money for?" she asked plaintively. "I'm not about
to hand over five hundred dollars for your personal amusement."

"Not
at all!" Daniel said, waving his hands in front of his face. "No,
no, for Celeste. We want to get her back to the hospital, to make
sure she's all right and getting treatment for her problems if
she's not. You know, because she just disappeared and all that?"

"None
of your business," she said dismissively. "So Daniel, you want
to go back to that hospital and find out what happened? I mean, I
don't think patients just get up and walk out without some kind of
signature or something.

Daniel
nodded and walked back to the sofa, checking to see if Celeste had
woken yet. Her eyelids were flickering, as though she was coming out
of sleep, but she had not quite yet gotten there.

"Celeste,"
he said softly. "Celeste…c'mon, we have to go."

She
let her eyes open slightly and then closed them again, pressing her
palms to her face. "Nng," she muttered incoherently. Daniel
smiled at her, even though she wasn't looking.

Xander
hung back, unsure whether he would be welcomed into the fray. "Yeah,
Celeste," he said from the doorway. "Let's go, come on. It'll
be fun."

Narnia
looked back at him, apparently irate, but nodded anyway. "Yeah,"
she said as she turned back to Celeste, "it'll be lots of fun.
Let's go, up and at 'em."

"M'kay,"
she said softly, rolling over and dragging herself up on all fours.
"Let's go."

Daniel
helped her to sit back and then stand, and Narnia hovered
protectively as he guided her to the door. Xander opened it, trying
to be cordial, and they all walked out.

"Wait
a second," Celeste slurred, trying to turn back to the door. "I
need to lock up or someone's gonna come rob my house!"

Daniel
and Narnia exchanged a knowing look and Xander felt completely in the
dark. Taking pity on the younger boy, Narnia explained, "Celeste
rarely bothers to lock her door. She doesn't think there's
anything in there worth taking, but sometimes she'll do it as a
matter of reflex. She wouldn't be making this much of a fuss over
it."

"Ah."

Daniel
guided Celeste into the elevator and Xander pushed the button for "1"
as Narnia tried to talk some sense into her friend.

"Do
you know where you are?" she tried. Celeste looked at her blearily
and shook her head.

"Oasis?"

"'Fraid
not," Daniel said softly as the elevator came to the first floor.
Hoisting her up on his back, he carried her out the front door with
his two companions on his heels and, per Narnia's instructions,
headed towards the hospital Celeste had been staying in at the time
of her peculiar disappearance.

As
Narnia wondered why Celeste had been released from the hospital with
no notice, she began to think that that hadn't been what had
happened at all. Come to think of it, none of the doctors or clerks
seemed to know anything about Celeste's release, much less when it
had occurred. But wouldn't she have needed a signature or two? Or
three? Certainly the doctor supervising her would need to give a
certificate or something, and another doctor would probably have
needed to corroborate the fact.

Had
Celeste simply woken up one day, decided she felt fine, and left?
Narnia frowned. They didn't even know what had gotten her into
that coma in the first place. What had gotten her out of it? And
maybe more importantly, why had it lasted for an entire year? Narnia
had never gone to medical school, but she had heard Anisha and
Takeshi go on and on about enough soap operas to know that a year was
a long time. So many questions, she thought grimly, and no one to
provide any answers.

"Narnia?"

Daniel
looked over at his friend and saw her thinking hard about something,
her fingers splayed across her mouth and her eyes narrowed at the
ground. The wind had begun to pick up and was blowing her hair in
her face, though she seemed to take no notice.

"Narnia,"
he tried again, shifting Celeste on his back. Carrying her hadn't
been hard, but standing still with her weighing him down was
beginning to get difficult. Still, Narnia paid him no attention.

Finally,
Daniel sighed in frustration and glared at her. When she didn't
even move, he decided to use his "last and most drastic resort,"
as she had dubbed it on a much prior occasion.

"Nolee!"

Narnia
looked up in alarm, her eyes widened and her mouth hanging open just
a bit. Xander cocked his head at this development—he thought Nolee
was a rather pretty name—and took a few small steps towards the
hospital doors.

"'Scuse
me?" she said icily. Daniel shrugged apologetically and jerked his
head towards the gates.

"We're
here. Thought you ought to know."

"…oh,"
she said with a delicate blush. "Oh. Okay, let's go on in,
then, see if we can't find someone to tell us what happened."

As
Narnia drew closer, Xander slowed his pace to fall in step beside
her. "Nolee?" he asked, wondering if he was pushing his luck.
"That's your real name, then?"

Narnia
glared at him out of the corner of her eye. "Nolee Julian
Eastman," she said thinly. "Yeah. Why?"

Xander
jostled his shoulder in a half shrug. "I dunno, I think it's a
pretty name. Why'd you change it?"

"Why,
does it seem stupid to you?"

"No,"
he said passively. "I just don't know why anyone would bother to
change their name. I mean, it's a piece of identity, isn't it?
I'd want to hold onto any identity I could get. That's why I
write songs and things, to put my identity in its place."

"I
thought you were a poet," Narnia said, looking at him fully as they
passed through the hospital doors and followed Daniel to the front
desk.

Xander
gave a small laugh. "When I was younger, yeah, I tried to be. No
more, though. Now I play guitar and—and…you know, play the stuff
I write."

"That's
impressive," Narnia said mildly, in a tone which expressed no
impression at all. Xander felt the corners of his mouth tug down in
the first hints of a frown, but made no other reaction as they
reached the nurse sitting at the front desk.

"Yes,
sir?" she was saying sweetly to Daniel as he put Celeste down on
her feet and let her lean on his shoulder.

"Yes,
hi," he said with simpering politeness. "My friend here was a
patient at this hospital about three years ago and then released, and
we want to know why no one was informed."

The
nurse had plastered on a clearly routine smile and began typing
something into her computer. "All right, sir," she said in her
suddenly exhausted voice, "on what date was your friend here
released?"

"We
don't know," Narnia said, sidling into the conversation. "That's
part of why we're here. We don't know what happened, or why she
was released at all. At the time, no one seemed to know where she
had gone or who had let her go."

Celeste
narrowed her eyes at the title, but smiled, creating a distinctly
creepy expression. "Celeste Lancer," she said, "but you might
also look under 'unidentified comatose.' Depending on who
brought me in here, see."

Daniel
nodded, not to the nurse, but to his lovely little friend with the
black and blue hair and the grey eyes that shone with something
delightfully malicious, promising of practical jokes and wily ploys.
Celeste was determined to make up for the three years she had lost
and determined to rectify her mistakes, whatever they might have
been. This difficult nurse wouldn't get in her way, that was for
sure.

The
nurse, meanwhile, was typing rapidly and pausing from time to time,
reading the screen and then typing some more. Daniel leaned on the
counter, waiting impatiently. Narnia wandered from one side of the
hall to the other, Xander trailing after her.

"Seriously,
Nolee," he said as he caught up to her. "If Narnia is your
artist's pseudonym, why do you use it all the time?"

Narnia
glowered alternately at him and at the wall. "How preppy is
'Nolee'?" Narnia asked sourly. "My parents were all in my
face, 'get rich, be better than we've been, succeed where we've
failed, make yourself loads of money.' I mean, I'm not trying to
pretend my parents named me 'Narnia,' but it's better than
nothing."

Xander
stepped in front of her, but rather than stop, as he clearly wanted
her to, she walked around him and kept pacing. " 'Nolee' isn't
nothing," he said loudly, following her. "It's who you
are and who you'll always be."

"What
if I want to change who I am, huh?" Narnia asked, turning on her
heel to face him. "What if I don't like who I started off as?
What if I don't like where—what I came from? What
then?"

Xander
backed up a step, startled at her sudden fury. "Then you change
who Nolee is," he said simply. "You take Nolee and you make her
better, you don't cover her up with fantasy or with Narnia the
artist."

Narnia
threw up her hands and Xander had the impression that she was about
to start some long rant, but she only put one hand to her head and
closed her eyes, folding the other across her chest and hugging
herself.

"It's
not that easy," she said tiredly. "I…I can't do that. I
don't know how. I've been Narnia for too long to give it up now,
I can't do it!"

"Yeah,"
Xander said derisively, "I'll bet. That's it. Go off and sit
in the corner and be Narnia, and you can put up a front all your life
to try and pretend Nolee never existed. But you know—of course you
don't, but I—anyway, I don't know if my real name is Xander?
That's why my friends call me Odd. Not 'cause I'm weird or
anything like that. I mean, yeah, some of them were dropped on the
orphanage's front stoop and named once they were taken in, but at
least they know what their names are and always have been.
They know where they came from and none of them like it, but they all
put up with it and they do something about it."

"Easy
for you to say!" Narnia said roughly. "You're orphans.
You haven't got anything else. You haven't got the
pressure following you all over, you haven't got your parents
hovering and reminding you all the time to go out, be rich, do
something phenomenal."

Xander
gaped for a moment, trying to accept that Narnia had just said what
he thought she had just said. Affirming in his mind that she had, he
shook his head slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on her as he did so.

"You
think you're the only one under pressure?" he said in a quiet
voice that rung of an underlying threat. "You think that because
your parents tell you to go out and make something of yourself,
you're the only one who's got anything to feel burdened by?"
He laughed derisively, a short, harsh noise like a bark. "No
pressure to get adopted," he went on, gaining volume. "No
pressure to go out and put the orphanage behind you. No pressure to
make something of yourself even though you didn't have a real
family, even though you were abandoned!"

He
was screaming by now, and Narnia was losing ground fast. She sank
into one of the hard plastic seats in the waiting area and shook her
head from side to side, dark red hair flying in her face and whipping
her ears. She muttered a soft mantra—"No, no, no, no, no, it's
not like that"—and Xander sat beside her, smacking his hand down
on the flimsy arm rest.

"Then
what is it like?" he asked harshly. "Huh? What's it
like for you? What makes you so special?"

"Nothing!"
she shrilled furiously, turning on him. The nurse, still flipping
through her computer files (much to Daniel's and Celeste's
annoyance) didn't seem to care about the noise they were making.
She glanced over at them once or twice, but said nothing, and they
didn't even notice her.

"Don't
you see it?" Narnia went on. "You don't, do you? You've got
your problems and I've got mine, but we don't have each other's,
and so we don't know what it's like to live that life. I don't
know being an orphan, and you don't know the parental pressure to
get rich quick, so we can't compare but we think we can!
Why don't you get it?"

Xander
looked at her critically for a minute or so. She made a good
point—an excellent point, if he was being honest with himself, not
that he would every admit it out loud. She was right, of course,
completely, but he didn't have to like it. His point had been
perfectly valid. She couldn't cover up the past, only move beyond
it.

"Okay,"
he said softly, regressing from the fight but not forfeiting it.
"Okay, fine. I admit we've both got problems that can't be
compared properly, but you ought to admit that fixing the future is
better than covering up the past."

Narnia
rested her chin in her palms and looked at Xander out of the corner
of her eye. "Fine," she conceded bitterly. "Fine. Do you
want to be the first one to start calling me Nolee?"

Xander
shrugged. "Do you want to be the…the seventh one to start
calling me Odd?"

"Che."
She offered a tiny smile. "Fine." She sighed and sat up again,
leaning back to look at the ugly tiled ceiling. "I don't forgive
you, you know. I don't even know how much I really like
you."

"The
feeling is mutual, I assure you."

"Great."
Standing, Nolee walked over to the front desk to check in on
Daniel's progress with the nurse. Xander remained in his seat,
watching with his hawk eyes. Celeste was seated on the floor by
Daniel's feet, leaning against the counter.

Daniel
glanced at Nolee as she approached. "Nolee?" he asked with some
surprise. She jostled her shoulders awkwardly in an uncertain
gesture.

"Yeah,
sure," she said passively. "I don't really care. I'm trying
to phase out 'Narnia' from the real world."

"All
of a sudden, eh?"

Nolee
grinned at him. "I had an enlightening conversation. You might've
heard some of it?"

Daniel
laughed. "Kind of hard to miss."

"Guess
so."

Celeste
stirred, then pulled herself up—courtesy of Daniel's pant leg.
Leaning on the counter, she narrowed her eyes at the nurse who was
paying her no mind. "How long is this going to take?" she asked,
enunciating clearly. The nurse looked up at her, obviously bored.

"Yeah?"

Celeste
growled threateningly, but the nurse only closed her eyes and
breathed in deeply. Daniel guessed that she got crazy people making
weird noises at her all the time. He put a hand on Celeste's
shoulder to calm her, but it seemed to have little effect if any at
all.

Celeste
leaned over to whisper in Daniel's ear. "Is it just me," she
muttered, "or did that sound prerecorded?"

Daniel
nodded, a serious expression on his face, and then grinned.

"Maybe
she's a robot."

Celeste
smiled weakly. "Maybe."

Xander
walked over and stood on her other side. "Celeste," he said
firmly. Daniel looked over at him warningly, but he took no notice.
Celeste looked at him curiously, as though meeting him for the first
time.

"Umm,
yeah?"

"Celeste,
how angry were you when you found out I didn't live in that
apartment I showed you when we walked back from the bridge?"

Celeste
pondered this for a moment, looking down at the floor and squinting
slightly. She made a soft humming noise as she thought and Xander
couldn't help but be a little nervous. If she didn't like him,
he would never have a hope of getting into her group of friends…
They all seemed so close—at least, the three he had met certainly
did, and he assumed the other two were similar. If Celeste turned
him away, Daniel and Nolee certainly would, and he would be left with
his "friends" from the orphanage, who were all moving on and
losing contact with him as it was.

"Not
very," she said finally. "I was wondering why you lied at all,
but I wasn't angry for long. Maybe a day? Day and a half?"

Xander
looked over her shoulder, trying to stare at the wall and ending up
losing focus on Nolee. "Oh," he said. "And then you didn't
call me because of your coma, I guess?"

She
nodded. "Kind of hard to keep in touch when I'm, you know,
unconscious. Don't you think?"

"Eh…I
guess…"

"Found
you!" the nurse said finally. Celeste checked her watch out of
habit: 8:35 exactly. The hospital had begun to fill up, she noticed
suddenly. No emergencies had occurred to draw her attention, but
there were a few idle patients and visitors and a boy with what
looked like a broken arm.

"Celeste,"
the nurse read, "last name unknown. Yes, we have here that you
were checked in for nearly a year and then on May 17th,
you were checked out. But this is a little odd—no one seems to
have signed off on it."

"So
the hospital just wrote her off as a discharged patient with no
evidence of that fact?" Nolee asked, sounding outraged. The nurse
shrugged.

"I
suppose so. I've been working here for just over two years, so I
wasn't around at the time you were here"—she gestured to
Celeste—"but that sounds like what must have happened."

"Well
then get us some free fever medication and let's get out of here,"
Daniel said loudly. Nolee nodded and Celeste divided her weight
between leaning on Daniel and leaning on the desk.

"I
feel really bad, guys," she said weakly. "Can I sit down or
something?"

Daniel
nodded sympathetically. "We're just going now," he said
soothingly. "Nolee," he said to her, "hang around and get the
medication? I'm going to carry Celeste back to her house."

Nolee
nodded. "Sure thing. I'll see you guys soon, then."

"Right.
Xander, coming?"

The
boy looked at Daniel curiously. "I am?"

Daniel
shrugged. "Do you want to? I don't really care, but you seem to
be a friend of Celeste's, sort of, so if you want to, you can."

"Sure—I
mean, yeah, okay. Thanks."

"No
problem," Daniel said, nodding. He lifted Celeste onto his back
and began walking towards the door. "See you, Nolee," he called
back to her. She waved distractedly, preoccupied with the nurse, who
seemed to be refusing her the medicine.

Xander
caught up to Daniel as he was leaving. "So," he said, trying to
sound at least marginally cheerful, despite the circumstances, "are
you going to another hospital? You know, for her amnesia and
hallucinations and things?"

Daniel
looked down at him with a small bit of quickly erased disdain.
"Later," he said, "but now she needs some rest. We can give
her Advil or something to calm her for a little while."

"A
little while, yeah."

"Mm."

The
two walked on a little ways before Xander quickened his pace and
Daniel, for no reason other than instinct, quickened his as well to
catch up.

"…odd,"
Xander finished for him, grinning lopsidedly. "I know. But, just
as a favor to me, would you mind?"

Daniel
shrugged, which dropped Celeste down a little and forced him to lift
her back up. "Yeah, it is. I guess I could…what're you trying
to sound like you leapt out of some Japanese cartoon or something?"

"French,
actually," Xander said with a small wink, "but close enough."

"…yeah.
Sure, then. Well, we're here."

Xander
looked up at Celeste's door. "So we are," he said, clearly
biding for time. "I, um, I guess I'll see you around, then?"

Daniel
didn't bother to respond that time, but helped Celeste inside and
rang the elevator as Xander walked away slowly. Nolee was on her way
back by then, he figured, and as much as he was interested in
becoming her friend, he didn't want to run into her just then and
be snubbed again.

Sure
enough, practically the moment Xander rounded the corner of Fox Wood,
Nolee came within viewing range of the apartment, clutching a paper
bag full of fever medication. She jogged the rest of the way down
the block and up to the apartment, stumbling into the first floor
just as the elevator hit "2." With a huffed sigh, she took the
stairs two at a time and reached the fifth floor just as Daniel and
Celeste were getting off.

"Got
it, finally," she said, breathing heavily. "We'll have
to go to another hospital to get her amnesia checked out, though. I
don't trust those guys."

Daniel
nodded. "Me neither. One of us can stay here for the night and
see how she's doing in the morning."

"Yeah…hey,"
Nolee said suddenly, "did she have a fever when you got here?"

The
pair walked silently into Celeste's apartment and Daniel helped her
lie back on the sofa. Nolee brought over the fever medication and
offered a glass of water, then sat on the floor by Celeste's head.
The other girl smiled and downed her medicine, closing her eyes at
once.

"Sleep
well," Daniel said. "I've got to go home and explain my most
interesting night to Talasi, but Nolee, will you stay here tonight?
Er, today?"

Nolee
smiled fondly. Celeste was already drifting off, which was
definitely a good thing. Tomorrow they would go to a different
hospital and her amnesia would be tended to—maybe they could even
do some work to find out what had caused that coma three years ago.
Who knew, anyway, what miracles doctors could work, given the right
patient?

Daniel
was gone and Nolee grinned. Maybe she would call Odd later. Celeste
needed to get as much sleep as possible before the next day;
hopefully she would sleep through the rest of that day as well as the
night. Nolee needed to keep herself busy, that was for sure.

Wandering
idly into the kitchen, Nolee saw a black shirt lying on the counter.
"Weird," she thought. "I could've sworn the landlord took
all Celeste's stuff out when she disappeared after the
hospital…incident…"

Picking
up the shirt to observe the cut, Nolee noticed a large red stain
across the lower right quarter. A note was pinned to the blotch:
"ask Narnia to fix."

Nolee
grinned. She could do that. Fishing around the only kitchen drawer
for some scissors and sewing materials, she found herself thinking
about Odd and his argument with her over Narnia and Nolee.

"You
can't always win," she thought deviously. Looked like Narnia was
about to make a comeback.

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